Best power point ever!

Copyright final images 5 from amandasonnier

I made one major change to the power point this time around.  After the "Why bother" slide, I added in a cute picture of a young girl on a laptop with the ominous heading "No one is safe..." In the presenter notes I've added the story of Brianna LaHara, a 12 year old girl who was amongst the first sued by the RIAA in 2003 ("Music Firms Target 12-year-old," 2003). The idea is to tug at your heartstrings, and inspire fear, strongly engaging your emotions.  Apart from changing the reference pages to include the news articles I cited, I did nothing else.  I attempted to add music to my presentation, but that appears to be a feature not supported either by the export function of Keynote, or possibly the version of Powerpoint I was using, or possibly slideshare.  Most likely all three. Because after I added sounds to my powerpoint it did not export or save properly, nor did the sounds play through the powerpoint presentation, nor did it upload properly. So we will proceed without sound.  Since I already have several elements to engage emotions, I felt no further change was necessary. 

I have also gone bad and added references from all the images I've used.  I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to cite these before, but I've fixed it now. 

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 9

In the ninth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author emphasizes using the audiences’ emotions to increase retention of the information in your presentation. 

I was not surprised to know that an emotional story was more effective than statistics alone.  What I was surprised by was that including statistics actually reduced the effectiveness of the presentation. I suppose that as a society, we’ve been bombarded by so many statistics that we tend to tune them out. I wonder if this extends to other factual information. In a world where the facts are readily available via Google, do our presentations need to do more than point people in the right direction?  Of course in most school settings this isn’t appropriate.  Of course we have to convey the factual information.  That’s the whole point. I’m not quite sure how to include something to tug on my students’ heartstrings in an Algebra 1 presentation, but I will think about it. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch 8.

In the eighth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author discusses using music during presentations.  Burmark (2011) reminds us that music is a powerful tool to influence the emotions of those viewing our presentations, and encourages us to use it.

I completely agree that music is an important part of presentations. On occasion I will watch independent films, and sometimes, they come without a soundtrack.  Almost inevitably, I don’t like these films, because I don’t feel like I connect with the plot. Alternatively, there is a theater in Dallas called Pocket Sandwich Theater.  It specializes in house written melodramas, and one of the things I love the most about it, is each melodrama is accompanied by cheesy piano music, specifically designed to let the audience know when to cheer for the hero, and when to boo for the villain and throw popcorn. I’m not sure, however, how to add music to my presentations - particularly those about mathematics.  I’ll have to ponder it a bit. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Wow! Could this power point get any better?

The first change I made was to the title page.  I found an image and made it full screen. Since the background was already yellow, I changed the font from yellow to black.  Burmark (2011) suggests using images that fill the screen, and I agree.  It looks much better. I also had the image on the next slide fill the screen.  I moved the text to an empty corner for visibility. I already had incorporated several elements of humor, and I used compare and contrast on the "What's in the public domain?" page. I moved the implied license slides to just after the fair use slides.  I feel like implied license and fair use are two sides of one coin, and should be put together. My next change was to add the "It's only a sin if you get caught" slide.  I used a full screen image with elements of humor, comparing copyright infringement to burglary. The title is humorous as well, but also captures an important concept of fair use, and implied license; relying on either could be dangerous. It's better to rely on an implicit license, which is why the next slide is about creative commons licenses. The last changes were to make the images on the last two slides full screen, and to move the text to an appropriate location.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 7

In the seventh chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author speaks on the importance of full color images that connect with the content you are trying to convey.  Burmark (2011) discusses the positioning and size of photos.

Burmark’s (2011) photo with the Norman Vincent Peale quote struck me as one of those “I knew that” moments (p. 123). I’ve seen hundreds of images like this on the internet.  Some funny, some inspirational.  I’ve seen them on posters in classrooms.  Why haven’t I seen them in my own presentations?  It’s a bit like walking through the woods, looking around, and suddenly seeing a deer standing stock still ten feet from you, where a minute ago, you saw nothing but foliage. I can easily use images as a backdrop for my presentations.  It will be something I work to do more of in the future. It’s also shocking how much difference the color makes, particularly on the velcro photo (Burmark, 2011, p. 115).

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 5

In chapter five of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author builds on the previous chapter’s concepts of making new information “stick,” by discussing using prior knowledge, making abstract concepts more concrete,  and using compare and contrast. Burmark (2011) says that in order to get people to retain information they have to make a connection to it. 

I’ve heard that using compare and contrast in classrooms is incredibly effective from multiple sources.  I’ve even seen it in my own classroom. One of the SMART notebook apps is a template where a set of words, images, numbers or other symbols can be sorted into one of two swirling vortexes. When I would lecture about mitosis and meiosis as two separate entities, I would get blank stares. We took short quizzes over each topic, and the grades I got back left me in despair. So when I went to another faculty meeting where my administration was singing the praises of compare and contrast, I went back to my classroom armed with some venn diagrams. We filled out the diagrams together as a class, and I let the kids play with the swirling vortex app on the SMART board.  After a week of studying mitosis and meiosis as they related to each other, instead of in a vacuum, quiz scores on both topics rose dramatically. I will be including it in many more presentations in the future. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 6

In the sixth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author emphasizes the importance of humor in a good presentation. Burmark (2011) discusses what humor is, why it is important in the classroom, and a few techniques on how to make it work for you. 

One of the best teachers in my building puts a science joke meme on the board every day with the morning’s instructions. When she was absent for a few days, one of the loudest complaints she got when she returned was that there were no jokes on the board with the substitute. Students do notice when we make an attempt to include humor in our presentations, no matter how bad they think our jokes are. I was really surprised to see the benefits of laughter quantified. I was aware that it lifted your mood, but I had no idea it also raised your immunity.  Working with high schoolers, however, I’m more likely to make them groan than laugh. I’ll see what I can do about that.

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.